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Style or Substance? By Beth Stewart During the last Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization, Congress placed a moratorium on the use of Individual Quota Shares as a management tool, and asked the National Academy of Sciences to review and report on the efficacy of such programs. Congress also created an advisory committee, which would report to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The National Academy of Sciences through its investigations body, the National Research Council (NRC), set up a distinguished group of experts. The NMFS also appointed West and East Coast Panels. Dr. Lee Anderson chaired the East Coast Panel, and I chaired the West Coast Panel. After several discussions, it was decided that the advisory panels would meet jointly, and would meet in the same location and time period that the NRC Panel met. Meetings were held in Anchorage, Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. These meetings offered a unique opportunity to hear the vast array of reasons that fishers across the country supported or opposed individual share system approaches to effort limitation. Defining the terms seemed to be the key to beginning a focused discussion. Only two terms stayed constant: individual-meaning one controlling entity; and quota-meaning a percentage of allowable harvest. So, at the broadest level, the management tool we were all discussing was simply IQs--Individual Quotas. Reduced to the simplest term, IQs still left a lot of room for heated debate. It turned out that defining the terms revealed just how diverse regional experiences were. Defining "I" led to lengthy discussions. Did individual mean a fisher with history in a particular fishery, a processor with such history, or a vessel with such history? Or was fishing history a necessary component of a quota share system. Perhaps an auction of shares to individuals should be considered. People's ability to support quota share management depended heavily on this question. Quota shares or "Qs" were less controversial. If a fishery was managed against a numerical ceiling (on the West Coast, Total Allowable Catch) then that number could be divided among individuals. If a catch ceiling did not exist, then it would seem to be fruitless to explore a quota share system. The other controversial element centered on the "T" for transferability. Many people divided over the issue of transferability. For some folks, Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQs) were fine, but Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) were completely unacceptable. Naturally the opposite was also true. My own impressions of the experience include several observations that are not confined to the definition of terms. It is clear to me that IQs must be tailored to fit local needs and that they will never be acceptable in some areas as long as fishers feel that the government is imposing IQs. It became clear to me that in many parts of the country the IQ debate was about style as much as it was about substance. When NMFS managers became enamored of IFQs and other forms of limited entry, many fishers across the country felt the agency was forcing something down their throats. The anger aimed at IQs really seemed to be much more a function of people's impressions about government. During the advisory panel's discussions, panel members who were staunchly opposed to IQs agreed that in some situations they might be perfectly acceptable. However, these people could not overcome the fear that if IQs were a tool that the Councils could choose, NMFS would once again force them on everyone. Oddly enough, the recent popularity of fishery cooperatives hasn't garnered nearly as much open hostility as IQs did. Could it be that cooperatives are more acceptable because they arose out of a fisher-identified need? Although cooperatives are strikingly similar to IQs, they appear to be much more acceptable. Certain elements of cooperatives, particularly whether fishers must be tied to a specific processor, cause a fair amount of debate. However, the idea of cooperatives has not risen to the top of anyone's political agenda. As the agency responsible for the health of many of the nation's fish stocks, NMFS quite naturally employs a great many biologists, several economists, but very few social scientists. If the agency's mission were simply to decide how many fish could be taken and then open and close fisheries with acceptable precision, the biologists and a few economists would certainly be ideal staffing. However, NMFS and the Councils deal primarily with people. People and their various economic and social reasons for fishing are the reason NMFS exists. Left to themselves, fish would not require any agency's attention. Only when people enter the equation by removing fish is there any need to spend tax dollars managing fisheries. It occurs to me that while the agency may understand a great deal about fish, their life cycles, and their value to the national economy, the agency lacks expertise about the people who fish. All limited entry programs, including IQs, are people management schemes. Perhaps the agency would benefit from knowing a great deal more about people who fish. If it is in the nation's interest to continue harvesting fish in subsistence, recreational, and commercial fisheries, then it seems to me that the agency must be given the tools it needs to do so with greater success than it has currently met. Beth Stewart is director of the Aleutians East Borough's Department of Natural Resources. |